Throughout my career as a designer, I’ve noticed that in order to improve my design skill, I need to get feedback for my work. I remember as a Design Student at Suffolk, instead of exams at the end of the semester, we had a critique, where our professors, would judge our work for the season. It was definitely a scary experience but it also helped me become a better designer from all the comments I’d received. They were giving feedback because they wanted to help me become a better designer. It helped me when I got out in the real world when clients or my boss would give feedback to my designs. It was the basis of my thesis project, Failsafe, about learning from your mistakes.
After design school, I’ve come to realize that there aren’t ways for designers to give feedback to other designers. So, I wanted to create a website called On The Real. While I was thinking about it from the designer's perspective. I'm thinking it's very similar to any creative field. It’s a place where any creative can post their work and get feedback from other creatives.
Name & Logo
I went with On The Real as the name for this project because I want people to give their honest opinions on all the materials that are posted. It might be slang but I think it can work in this context.
Figma
So we start off with a profile page. I wanted this to look like an Instagram profile page.
If you click "Add New Post" on the top left, it'll take you to this screen. I ultimately want it to be that videographers, photographers, writers, musicians and UX Designers can post their content as well. The feedback loop can take hold in every creative aspect. But I'm just taking you through the Graphic Design path.
This slideshow shows the process of uploading a post on the site. Here's the interactive prototype to play around with.
I also wanted to share what it would look like if you got feedback. The idea is that everyone on this platform is a creative in some sort.
Webflow
I also tried to build it out on Webflow. Partially because it gave me an excuse to use Webflow and also because I wanted to see how far I can take this idea. I did manage to get into Webflow's beta program for sites with user profiles. But it does have some limitations at the moment.
Next Steps
Ironically, I am looking for feedback on how to improve this idea.
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